


Bird's-Eye View (the We Wanted The World To Know Our Names remix)

by geckoholic



Category: Batman (Comics), DCU (Comics), Marvel 616
Genre: Childhood Friends, Circus, Crossover, Gen, POV Clint Barton, Remix, Secret Identity
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-09-24
Updated: 2017-09-24
Packaged: 2018-12-26 06:01:58
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,146
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12052818
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/geckoholic/pseuds/geckoholic
Summary: Dick appears oddly misplaced, back-lit by the multicolored skyline of New York at night. He's grown roots, and that's one of the stranger things about this new Dick, so close to and yet so far removed from the kid Clint met all those years ago.





	Bird's-Eye View (the We Wanted The World To Know Our Names remix)

**Author's Note:**

  * For [marmolita](https://archiveofourown.org/users/marmolita/gifts).
  * Inspired by [Bird's-eye View](https://archiveofourown.org/works/442772) by [marmolita](https://archiveofourown.org/users/marmolita/pseuds/marmolita). 



> This was a bit of an experiment, seeing how I usually don't do crossovers. But it was a lot of fun, stepping out of my comfort zone to put these two together and see what happens.
> 
> Beta-read by zillabird. Thank you!! ♥ All remaining mistakes are mine.
> 
> Title is from "Demon Days" by Wild Wild Horses.

Clint simply stares at the text message for a good fifteen minutes. It's just letters on a screen and they might be a hoax, or they might be real, and there's no way to know for sure until he's followed the instructions. Anyone can sign a _text_ with BB, and it might stand for another codename that Clint's too preoccupied to remember now. But the word choices, the tone, even if it's maybe three sentences, leave him certain that this is, indeed, Barney. His brother. The brother he hasn't seen in, what, five years? 

Either way, the instructions are suspicious. A meetup for tomorrow at night in the industrial district so it's probably a trap. Clint would be stupid to go in alone. That puts him in a bit of a pickle. it's also not exactly the kind of issue he can bring up at the bi-weekly Avengers meetings. A couple years at that gig now and it still feels like he only just got them convinced, by some miracle, that he's a valuable addition to their team. That he can pull his weight. He can't take this to them and be more trouble than he's worth.

Frowning, Clint swipes the messages away and pulls up his contact list. Time to call an old friend. 

 

***

 

The circus is _weird_. Good weird, most of the time, but still. It's an adjustment. Then again, Clint's gotten used to those by virtue of seven foster homes in two years. They were all temporary and most of them rather unpleasant, and compared to that, the circus is a damn vacation so far be it for him to complain. He can deal with being on the road and the people playing dress up. He can deal with the strange acrobatics, exotic animals, and the visitors looking at him like he's part of some sort of window dressing. It means he'll be safe and fed and have a roof to sleep under. Even if that roof is a mobile one.

He's on dung duty today – like basically every day, because he's the new kid – and halfway through the stalls of the horses grazing outside when he notices that he isn't alone; there's a rustle over by the pile of fresh bedding. Without looking over his shoulder to check who his visitor is, he snarls out his brother's name. 

"About time you showed up," he rants, eyes still trained at end of his rake, because if he doesn't he'll also complain about the fact that Barney hasn't been around their trailer at all, other than to sleep or wolf down canned spaghetti without heating them, and that would just make him whiny. "We're both supposed to work for a living, here, you know." 

What makes Clint second guess his assumption is the the lack of an immediate, snarky reply. He sighs, and does turn around, and almost thinks he's been seeing things before he catches a movement behind one of the large logs that support the animal tent. 

The boy keeps himself hidden and he's small enough to disappear behind them entirely. Except that he's chosen to peek out, watching Clint clear out the soiled litter with wide, curious blue eyes. 

“What the hell are you up to?” Clint asks. He doesn't manage to make his tone as cutting as he wants. The kid is maybe seven and still very much baby-faced with an unruly mop of jet-black hair and those huge, imploring eyes. He's adorable, the kind of face that makes it hard to be mean. 

The boy steps out of the shadow of the stilts and shrugs his shoulders, hands clasped behind his back. “Dunno.” 

“That's a stupid answer,” Clint says. He waves a hand for the boy to come closer, because fuck it, if he's here then he can help. After a cautious glance around, he does, and Clint shoves a rake at him. “Here. Make yourself useful.” 

They work in silence until the kid stops raking in favor of looking at Clint with curiosity. 

Clint sighs and leans on his own shovel. “What?” 

“You don't have a mama,” the boy says, and Clint inwardly curses. Of course that's what makes him so interesting. Leave it to the circus kids, growing up around clowns and and elephants, to find an orphan odd enough that it warrants an investigation. 

Clint digs into a pile of old straw and shows the boy his back. “Nope. Don't have a daddy either.” 

Unimpressed by the obvious rejection, the boy walks around Clint and squints at him. “But you do have a brother,” he says. “I want one too, or a sister. I don't really care. I just want someone to play with.”

If that's his reasoning for wanting a sibling, Clint's got some bad news for him. “What's your name?” 

“Dick,” the kid says, with a completely straight face.

Clint hefts an eyebrow. “Really? That’s a stupid name.” 

“You say stupid a lot,” Dick observes with his head cocked. He states it without judgment or distaste, unlike some of Clint's foster siblings in the stricter homes, and that's why Clint swallows the cutting rejoinder that wants to come out in reply. 

Instead he settles on a murmured, “Jeez, I wonder why.” 

Dick squints at him further like he's demanding an explanation, and Clint just shakes his head, smiling despite himself. 

 

*** 

 

When it comes down to it, Gotham and New York aren't so different. The latter is a bit better at pretending, hiding its shadier parts in order to present herself like a cosmopolitan hot-spot, but their underbellies look much the same. And yet, Dick appears oddly misplaced, back-lit by the multicolored skyline of New York at night. He's grown roots, and that's one of the stranger things about this new Dick, so close to and yet so far removed from the kid Clint met all those years ago. 

Clint glances at the Avengers tower, the tell-tale _A_ hardly visible from this distance but familiar enough that Clint can spot it anyway. He lowers his eyes and takes a deep breath. 

“Thank you for showing up,” he says, quickly, before the words have a chance to get stuck in his throat. 

“Of course,” Dick says, waving a hand. He knows Clint well enough to leave it at that. “So Barney, huh?” 

“Yeah,” Clint confirms. “I think it really _is_ him.” 

“Blackmailing his own brother sure is his brand of classy.” Dick frowns, and yeah, he's never liked Barney much. He pegged him as untrustworthy right off the bat. He had keen insight into human nature, even as a pre-teen. Only one of the innate skills he possesses that Clint's sorely lacking; other examples would be common sense and a general idea of sound judgment. 

 

***

 

There's something strangely liberating in crossed lines. Clint would never have seen himself as a petty thief, but compared to breaking and entering and all the other shit he's already been made to do, it now seems like the lesser evil. It's not like he's got much choice. He doesn't have much by the way of actual marketable skills, and neither good aim nor slight of hand qualify him for a wide range of legit, legal jobs. He still wanders these days – Chicago, New York, Blüdhaven, Metropolis, Gotham, in the last couple months alone – aimless like a leaf on the wind, his next habitual residence determined by chance and quickly changing circumstances. 

Lately, he's heard Gotham isn't the place for illegal means of making a living anymore, but Clint never much believed in tall tales. A bat-themed vigilante and a bird-themed sidekick. Yeah, sure. Nice story. Desperate measures of a storm-tossed city to keep the riffraff away, if Clint had to guess. 

He's being opportunistic tonight, saw an ad for a huge event at the theater today and followed the shiftiest looking suit around, mid-fifties with a thirty-something arm candy that's dressed in pearls and fur, the ever unchanging dress code of the vulgarly rich. The next dark alley and they're his to pick from like an orchard tree; he pins her fur to the wall and while she's wailing, approaches them with a cloth covering half his face and a Captain Marvel baseball cap disguising the other. He calmly explains that he's using a trick arrow – a lie, but they don't know it – and that he'll explode her right where she stands if they don't give him all their cash. 

The guy she's with is just holding his wallet out to Clint with a shaking hand when there's a whiff of air and the clatter of metal on metal behind them. Clint snatches the wallet on instinct and out of a brazen need to survive, and then turns around. 

He's greeted by the sight of a boy a few years younger then him. The boy is donned in a ridiculously colorful costume and wears a domino mask on his face above a cheeky, self satisfied grin. In his hand is a grappling gun. Huh. That does look vaguely bird-themed. Maybe not just a tale, then. 

Without retrieving the arrow, which is unfortunate but not a loss worth risking jail for, Clint takes to the roof. He jumps up to a fire ladder nearby and runs without a plan. The metallic clatter comes again as the grapple gun is shot to give chase. Maybe trying to duck away on the ground somewhere would have been the smarter choice. But he's stuck with his escape route now, and with a few more skipped rungs he's on the roof, heading towards a maintenance shack that he hopes contains unhindered access to a stairwell. 

Clint doesn't get much further. he ends up with a fishing net over his head, getting roped in towards bird boy. As he digs his heels in to become dead weight and at least make the kid work for it, the grin he's wearing, half smug, half excited, suddenly looks somewhat familiar. 

“Wait a second.” He struggles inside the net, which is pitch-black, hard to make out in the dark and surprisingly sturdy. “Dick?” 

The smile on the boy's face freezes. He looks around, uncertain. “I... no?” 

And yes, the voice confirms it. Definitely Dick Grayson. “Stop it, you don't fool me. I've known you since you were about three foot five and followed me around like a stray dog.” 

The rope gets dropped, and Dick cocks his head, which, eerily, still looks the same as it did then. “Clint?” 

“Yeah, Clint,” he confirms, and huffs with annoyance. “Now get this stupid net off me.” 

Dick shakes his head as if to clear his thoughts and then runs over, glancing towards a rooftop a few buildings over. He helps Clint out of the net and then smiles, a finger to his lips. “Run, before he catches up with us. I'll let you get away this once, but you have to promise me to leave the city, alright?” 

Clint squints towards the spot Dick keeps looking over to, and it takes him a few tries to make out the dark shape with pointy ears. Ah, of course. The bat. He rights the quiver on his hip and smiles back. “You got it, Dickie.”

 

*** 

 

The apartment Clint still keeps despite his whole _floor_ at the tower is a mess and sort of reeks, but Dick and him have witnessed enough of each other's less charming moments over the years that Clint isn't ashamed. He makes a few haphazard attempts at tidying up before he flops down on the couch, shoveling an old newspaper out of the way – there's oil on it, probably from assembling arrow heads – and waves at Dick to do the same. 

“So what's the plan?” Dick asks, depositing his booted feet on the coffee table, his arms and ankles crossed. 

Clint shrugs. “I don't know. Go over there, kick his ass, forget he exists for another three to five years?” 

“You could have taken him alone,” Dick says. It's a statement, not another question. It's also true; not the first time the Barton brothers are having it out in some fashion, and Barney started losing to Clint around the time he turned sixteen. Hand to hand, shooting, thieving. Sometimes Clint thinks if he'd just been a little less talented, a little less adaptive, Barney would have stuck around. But it's not in his nature to play it low. 

His feet join Dick's on the coffee table, and he shifts, looking for a more comfortable position. He’s fully aware that it's not the couch that's causing the uncomfortable tingling feeling at the base of his spine. “I asked for your help because I knew that, if I went in alone, I might kill him.” 

Dick leans forward and stares at him, eyebrows drawn together in a frown. “You're exaggerating.” 

“Obviously,” says Clint, then shrugs again. “Kinda.” 

_”Clint.”_ Dick's voice is sharp, worry and disbelief and something else, something stern and dark, something that hadn't been there before Bruce Wayne got his claws in him. 

Of course he's exaggerating. He made it through a sordid criminal career without taking a life, he's an Avenger now and sworn to their code of conduct, and Barney is still his brother. Doesn't change the fact that it'd lift a weight off Clint's shoulders if he wouldn't have to worry anymore when Big Brother Barton will next attempt to throw a wrench into Clint's latest attempt at carving out a place for himself. Family: it's not supposed to be easy. He's about to point that out, but then swallows his words. At least he still _has_ a living and breathing blood relative. 

 

*** 

 

The circus is illuminated by lights in all shades every night, but somehow the cascading blue and red light of the police cars feels wrong, alien, upsetting. Maybe that's because Clint knows why they're here, and it's just about the worst reason he could possibly imagine. Men in uniform are roaming about, too, and everyone has this haunted, disbelieving expression on their faces, and all of that is shockingly familiar. 

But now is not the time to get bogged down in memory, because Clint's got a quivering mess of a twelve year old in his arms and he deserves all of Clint's attention. “You’ll be okay,” Clint tells him, holding him close. “Your parents were a hell of a lot better than mine ever were, but I know what it’s like to not have them. It will take a while but it gets better. And you’re going to have someone to take care of you, right?”

Dick sniffles. “I want to stay with you. I want to stay with the circus. But they said I have to go with Mister Wayne.”

Clint rubs Dick’s shoulder. “He seems like he’s nice enough. Hey, the circus comes through here all the time. You can come see me, okay?” 

Dick nods, but Clint can still feel him shaking.

“Hey,” Clint says, and nudges Dick until he looks up with red-rimmed, bleary eyes. “Make the most of what he can do for you, but never forget who you are. Where you came from. And if he turns out to be an insufferable asshole, you'll always have a home here with me and Barney.” 

There's a small derisive scowl at the mention of Barney's name, and that's mostly why Clint bothered mentioning him; for distraction. The shitbag is barely around these days anyway. Dick rubs his knuckles into his eyes, a vulnerable, childish gesture. “Can't you come with me? He said he's got a big house. Maybe, if we ask, there'll be room for you too.” 

Clint strokes his hand over Dick's head, then swipes the tears away from under his eyes with his thumb. “I'm a bit old to get adopted. Besides, you don't want my stupid Barton bad luck to wash off on you.” 

Another scowl, but Dick doesn't argue further. Instead he cuddles closer, curling into Clint's arms, and together they wait for the impromptu paperwork to be ready. Dick has fallen asleep from exhaustion by the time Bruce Wayne walks up to where they're huddled, kneels down, and stares at Clint expectantly. With reluctance and a heavy knot in his stomach, Clint shakes Dick awake and puts him on his feet. He waves goodbye when Wayne takes Dick's small hand in his and leads him out of Clint's world. 

 

*** 

 

The warehouse is near the harbor, abandoned for years and shady as fuck – in short, it's Barney's style down to a T. The noise from the shipping companies carries over, same as the constant bright light, and it creates a maze of shadows that's risky to navigate. Every moment someone could jump out of a dark corner, and Clint and Dick keep almost back to back, covering the angles one alone couldn't oversee. They're both in civvies. Dick brought his new costume, black and blue now, no longer anyone's sidekick, but... if he'd wanted the attention that comes with superhero appearances, Clint could have asked the Avengers. Besides, neither he nor Dick are any less skilled without their getup. The gimmicks aren't necessary. 

There's also the fact that Clint hasn't yet gotten around to telling Dick about the avenger-ing. Not intentionally, but for the last few years they've mostly talked over the phone and it didn't really come up so far. Because of that, it never felt like lying before. 

It kinda does now. 

He watches Dick's hand go up as if to fiddle with his domino, then segue the movement into scratching his temple, and takes the distraction. “Missing your fancy toys?” 

Dick turns his head. “Night vision sure would be useful.” 

“Wayne's got you so spoiled,” Clint teases. “Pampered Gotham vigilante, too good to stumble around in the dark with an old carny, eh?” 

There's a pause, and the corners of Dick's mouth lift into a lazy grin. “Oh, you gotta talk. Your trick arrows sure got an update since you're funded by Stark industries and rooming with _Captain America_.” 

Feeling caught, Clint stops dead. He averts his eyes and tries to disguise it as a parameter check. “You knew?” 

“Clint, you left half your costume out on a drying rack in the kitchen.” When Clint meets his gaze again, the grin has eased out into a fond smile. “Plus, I, too, have known you since we were kids, I have eyes, and I can put two and two together. Figured it out the first time I saw _Hawkeye_ on the news.” 

They're interrupted by a loud bang not far from them, something dropping to the ground and scrapping by a container on the way down, and they both stop dead, listening for the source. It's followed up with laughter, the sound familiar to both of them, and Clint sighs. 

“Alright,” he says and nods towards Dick, nocking an arrow. “Here goes nothing.”

**Author's Note:**

> Find me on [tumblr](http://lostemotion.tumblr.com).


End file.
